Beg, Borrow or Steal Trivia Quiz

Answer: Coptic

The Spanish word "adobe" comes from the Coptic word "tobe" ("brick"), which entered Arabic as "al-tuba". Still used as a liturgical language by the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Coptic is the last living descendant of Ancient Egyptian. Though it has no native speakers, revitalisation efforts are under way.

While Sumerian (a language isolate, and one of the oldest recorded languages in the world) has been extinct for centuries, a modern form of Aramaic (a Semitic language) is still spoken by small, scattered communities in the Middle East. Hebrew (also from the Semitic family) was revived in the 19th century, and is now spoken by about 9 million people worldwide.

Answer: Portuguese

These three animal names all come directly from Portuguese. Albatross is an alteration from "albatroz", while dodo comes from the Portuguese "doudo", meaning "stupid" or "crazy". Cobra is short for the Portuguese "cobra-de-capelo", meaning "snake with a hood".

There are, of course, plenty of English words borrowed from Spanish and Italian, and a handful (the most common of which is "barracks") from Catalan.

Answer: Afrikaans

Afrikaans is derived from Dutch, which is closely related to English. In 1835, the descendants of the Dutch settlers (called Afrikaners - hence the language's name) used ox-driven wagons to journey inland and establish independent communities when the British started to encroach on their lands. This migration was known as the Great Trek.

Zulu and Xhosa, both belonging to the Bantu family, are also among the 11 official languages of South Africa. Swahili (also a Bantu language), though widely spoken in Southeast Africa, is not counted among South Africa's official languages.

Answer: Malay

"Kechap" (spelled "ketjap" in Indonesian) was a fish-based table sauce brought by the Chinese to the Malay states in the 17th century. In modern-day Indonesian cuisine, soy-based condiments by the name of "ketjap asin" (salty) and "ketjap manis" (sweet) are widely used. The word was first recorded in English as "catchup" in 1690, and as "ketchup" in 1711.

Though Malay and Indonesian are mutually intelligible, there are differences in spelling, pronunciation and vocabulary (Malay spelling is influenced by English, Indonesian spelling by Dutch). Like Vietnamese, they are written using the Roman alphabet, while Thai and Korean have their own distinctive scripts.

Answer: Sami

Sami, also known as Lappish (a derogatory term best avoided), is a Uralic language (or, more precisely, a group of languages) spoken by about 30,000 people in the northern regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. "Tundra" came into English and other European languages via Russian.

Finnish also belongs to the Uralic family, while Norwegian is a Germanic language like English. Inuit, on the other hand, belongs to the Eskimo-Aleut family, and is spoken in northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland.

Answer: Nahuatl

Nahuatl was the language of the Aztecs, who dominated large parts of Mexico before they were conquered by the Spanish in the 16th century. It is still spoken today in mountainous areas of central Mexico. Many names of popular Mexican foods (such as guacamole, tamale and mole) also come from Nahuatl.

Mayan languages are still spoken in southern Mexico (especially in the Yucatan peninsula) and northern Central America. Quechua (the language of the Inca civilisation) and Aymara are spoken in the Andes region of South America, mostly in Peru and Bolivia.

Answer: Tahitian

Spoken by around 70,000 people in the Society Islands (which are part of French Polynesia), Tahitian is a Malayo-Polynesian language (a subgroup of the larger Austronesian family). Tattoo comes from the Tahitian word "tatau", meaning "puncture, mark made on skin"; its first known use in English dates back from 1769.

Hawaiian and Maori are also Polynesian languages. Tagalog, though also belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian family, is spoken in the Philippines, which are located in the north Pacific.

Answer: Persian

Many English words, both of common and less common use, have their roots in Persian (or Farsi), the Indo-European language spoken in what is now known as Iran. Bazaar and caravan keep both the form and the meaning of the original words, while other words (such as "spinach" or "tulip") have undergone various phonetic transformations.

Armenian, the official language of the Republic of Armenia in the Caucasus region, is related to Persian, being part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. Turkish belongs to the Altaic family, and Arabic to the Semitic.

Answer: Polish

Though "horde" has its roots in the Turkic word "ordu"/"orda" (meaning "royal residence", "camp"), its current English form - which dates back from the mid-16th century - comes from the Polish "horda" (via Ukrainian "gorda"). The name of the Indo-European language Urdu, spoken in Pakistan, comes from the same Turkic root.

Polish, like Russian, belongs to the Slavic branch of the Indo-European family, while Romanian belongs to the Romance branch. Hungarian is a Uralic language, distantly related to Finnish and Estonian, and one of the few non-Indo-European languages spoken in Europe.

Answer: Powhatan

Powhatan, the language of the Virginia Algonquians, was named after the chief encountered by the English who established the settlement of Jamestown in 1607. The chief's daughter, Pocahontas, was said to have saved Captain John Smith's life. Disney's 1995 animated film, "Pocahontas", is a fictionalised account of that encounter. Other English words of Powhatan origin are "persimmon" and "tomahawk".

Though Powhatan became extinct towards the end of the 18th century, Shawnee, Cheyenne and Ojibwa - also belonging to the Algonquian family - are still spoken in parts of the central US.